5.  The applicant, Mr Antoni Lewandowski, is a Polish national who was born in 1953 and lives in Mielec.
6.  The applicant is married with two adult children. Prior to his early retirement he had been employed for 31 years and had paid his social security contributions to the State.
7.  On 23 or 28 December 2000 the applicant filed an application with the Rzeszów Social Security Board (Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych) to be granted the right to an early-retirement pension for persons raising children who, due to the seriousness of their health condition, required constant care, the so-called “EWK” pension.
8.  Along with his application for a pension, the applicant submitted, among other documents concerning his daughter’s health condition, a medical certificate issued by a specialist doctor on 22 December 2000. The certificate stated that the child (born in 1989) suffered from chronic allergy sinusitis (alergiczne zapalenie przewlekłe błony śluzowej nosa) and recurring pulmonary and throat infections and that she was in need of her parent’s constant care.
9.  On 10 January 2001 the Rzeszów Social Security Board issued a decision granting the applicant the right to an early‑retirement pension.
10.  The Social Security Board initially suspended the payment of the pension due to the fact that the applicant was still working on the date of the decision.
11.  On 28 February 2001 the applicant resigned from his full-time job as a driver at the Municipal Vehicle Communication (Miejska Komunikacja Samochodowa) in Mielec.
12.  Consequently, on 2 March 2001 the Rzeszów Social Security Board issued a new decision authorising the payment of the previously awarded retirement pension in the net amount of 1,130 Polish zlotys (PLN) (approximately EUR 260) starting from 1 March 2001.
13.  The applicant was issued with a pensioner’s identity card marked “valid indefinitely” and he continued to receive his pension without interruption until the date of the revocation of the right.
14.  On 4 June 2002 the Rzeszów Social Security Board asked the Main Social Security Board’s doctor (Główny Lekarz Orzecznik) to inform it whether the applicant’s daughter required the permanent care of a parent. On 7 June 2002 the doctor stated that, on the basis of the medical documents, the child could not be considered as ever having required such care.
15.  On 11 June 2002 the Rzeszów Social Security Board issued simultaneously two decisions in respect of the applicant.
16.  By virtue of one decision, the payment of the applicant’s pension was discontinued with immediate effect. By virtue of the other decision, the Social Security Board revoked the initial decision granting a pension and eventually refused to grant the applicant the right to an early‑retirement pension under the scheme provided for by the 1989 Ordinance.
17.  The applicant appealed against the respective decisions divesting him of the right to an early-retirement pension. He submitted that he should receive the benefit because his child required constant care, as confirmed by the medical certificate attached to the original application for a pension. Moreover, the applicant alleged that the revocation of his retirement pension was contrary to the principle of vested rights.
18.  On 9 September 2002 the Tarnobrzeg Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy) ordered that the case be remitted to the Social Security Board and that the applicant’s child be examined by the Social Security Board’s doctor.
19.  On 28 February 2003 the Social Security Board’s doctor, who had examined the applicant’s child, stated that the child had suffered from recurring sino-pulmonary infections but did not require permanent care, nursing or assistance.
20.  On 22 October 2003 the Tarnobrzeg Regional Court dismissed the appeal. The Regional Court concluded on the basis of the evidence that the applicant’s child did not require his father’s permanent care, his nursing or any other form of assistance, since her health condition did not significantly impair her bodily functions. The domestic court held that the applicant had been rightfully divested of his right to a pension under the scheme provided by the 1989 Ordinance as he had not satisfied the requirement of necessary permanent care.
21.  The applicant appealed against the first-instance judgment.
22.  On 17 March 2004 the Rzeszów Court of Appeal (Sąd Apelacyjny) dismissed the appeal. On 30 March 2004 a copy of the court’s judgment was served on the applicant.
23.  A professional lawyer, who had been either hired by the applicant or appointed to represent him under a legal-aid scheme, prepared and lodged a cassation appeal against the second-instance judgment on the applicant’s behalf.
24.  The cassation appeal ran to eight pages and raised a number of points of law. In particular, it was alleged that section 114 of the Law of 17 December 1998 on retirement and disability pensions paid from the Social Insurance Fund had been breached in that the evidence concerning the applicant’s child’s health, which had been attached to the original pension application, had been re-assessed in the light of a medical certificate issued more recently by the Social Security Board’s doctor. It was also argued that the case raised two serious questions of law which had to be resolved (potrzeba roztrzygnięcia istotnego zagadnienia prawnego) namely, whether in the light of the Supreme Court’s resolution of 5 June 2003, the child’s medical history records as of the time when the applicant first applied for the EWK pension constituted “newly-discovered evidence” within the meaning of section 114 of the 1998 Law and whether the social security authorities were entitled to reopen the proceedings ex officio on the basis of a newly-issued medical certificate of a Social Security Board’s doctor. Lastly, the lawyer argued that it was necessary for the Supreme Court to give a binding interpretation (potrzeba wykładni przepisów prawnych) of the relevant provisions which had so far given rise to serious divergences in the jurisprudence.
25.  On 9 July 2004 the Supreme Court refused to entertain the cassation appeal (odmowa przyjęcia kasacji do rozpoznania) on the ground that the lawyer had not properly described the circumstances which would justify the examination of the cassation appeal (okolicznośći uzasadniające rozpoznanie kasacji).
26.  Following the social security proceedings the applicant was not ordered to return his early-retirement benefits paid by the Social Security Board, despite the revocation of his right to an early-retirement pension.
27.  On 2 September 2005 the applicant resumed his paid employment.
28.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s gross annual income was PLN 4,962 (approximately EUR 1,185) in 2005, PLN 19,274 (approximately EUR 4,604) in 2006, PLN 15,363 (approximately EUR 3,670) in 2007, PLN 20,576 (approximately EUR 4,915) in 2008, PLN 14013 (approximately EUR 3,347) in 2009 and PLN 9,106 (approximately EUR 2,175) in the first half of 2010.
29.  The applicant did not provide any details about his employment after the revocation of his EWK pension. He only submitted that he was currently earning EUR 250 per month, that is, approximately PLN 3,000 per year (approximately PLN 1,046 per month and PLN 12,552 per year).
30.  The Government also submitted that the applicant’s wife had a gainful employment. Her gross income was PLN 32,952 (approximately EUR 7,869) in 2002, PLN 29,601 (approximately EUR ,067) in 2003, PLN 35,303 (approximately EUR 8,428) in 2004, PLN 36,244 (approximately EUR 8,653) in 2005, PLN 38,198 (approximately EUR 9,125) in 2006, PLN 39,797 (approximately EUR 9,502) in 2007, 43,236 (approximately EUR 10,323) in 2008, PLN 46,808 (approximately EUR 11,176) in 2009 and PLN 20,922 (approximately EUR 4,995) in the first half of 2010.
31.  The applicant has two daughters. The Government noted that the older daughter (born in 1983) had been employed since 2007 and her annual gross income was PLN 8,545 (approximately EUR 2,040) in 2007, PLN 16,625 (approximately EUR 3,968) in 2008, PLN 19,522 (approximately EUR 4,660) in 2009 and PLN 9,738 (approximately EUR 2,323) in the first half of 2010. The applicant’s younger daughter (born in 1989) does not have a job. In 2009 she was in receipt of a postgraduate scholarship (stypendium) paid by the District Employment Office (Powiatowy Urząd Pracy) in the gross annual amount of PLN 2,488 (approximately EUR 539).
32.  Under the relevant laws currently in force, it appears that the applicant will qualify for a regular retirement pension when he turns sixty‑five in 2018.
33.  Some 130 applications arising from a similar fact pattern have been brought to the Court. The majority of the applicants form the Association of Victims of the SSB (Stowarzyszenie Osób Poszkodowanych przez ZUS) (“the Association”), an organisation monitoring the practices of the Social Security Board in Poland, in particular in the Podkarpacki region.
34.  Out of all applications lodged with the Court, about twenty‑four applicants decided not to lodge a cassation appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal given in their case.
35.  One hundred-and-four applicants lodged cassation appeals against the final judgments given in their cases. The Supreme Court entertained and dismissed on the merits fifteen appeals. In eighty‑one applications the Supreme Court refused to entertain cassation appeals on the ground that they did not raise any important legal issues or require the Supreme Court to give a new interpretation to legal provisions which raised serious doubts or gave rise to ambiguity in the jurisprudence of the domestic courts. In the remaining eight cases, including in the one at hand, cassation appeals were rejected for failure to comply with various procedural requirements.